Clarity
by WastefulReverie
Summary: Valerie didn't need anyone to analyze her, she didn't need to be told how she should be processing this entire bullshit revelation. She needed clarity. Ultimately, that was something she could only find herself.


After Danny left, she hadn't been sure it was real. She'd stood in the alley beside his house and slammed her fist against the wall a good ten times, expecting it to give out or dissolve into vapor. Because this _had_ to be a dream, right? Phantom… being _human_? That was ludicrous in itself. Sure, she'd met his hybrid cousin before—a girl with black hair and blue eyes—but they weren't supposed to be the same! Phantom wasn't supposed to be Fenton!

It must've been a trick of the mind. She was running on three hours of sleep, her brain was just projecting its worst fears on itself. Or—or maybe another ghost was making her see things! This would all go away with a good hour of sleep!

Because she _hadn't _just shot Danny Fenton. He _hadn't_ just pulled himself to his knees and phased into his house. He _hadn't_ had abysmal fear in his eyes.

There wasn't any blood on her hands, either. No, nothing had splattered onto her black gloves. Those were just tearstains because she was being _hysterical_ and crying for nothing! They were tears, not blood. _Tears, tears, tears—_

(Or maybe, it was both.)

* * *

The week after they talked about it, Valerie couldn't help but… draw into herself. After that first night, he'd told her everything. But she still couldn't mentally digest any of it—she didn't know how she felt or how she should feel or if any of this was normal. No, she knew that. None of this was normal; her life hadn't been normal since a white-haired, green-eyed ghost had plowed through her dad's security system like it was nothing.

Sitting behind Danny in chemistry didn't make anything better. It was already Valerie's worst class, but now all she could focus on were the stupid, black hairs on Danny's stupid fucking head. She tried envisioning a white-haired boy in front of her instead, but she couldn't do it. No matter how hard she tried, Phantom was still miles away from Fenton. They just wouldn't connect, wouldn't go into the same person.

By the time she snapped back to reality, Mr. Johnson had already erased the whiteboard. Another class… _wasted. _She still couldn't put Phantom and Fenton together, forget passing chemistry.

Danny's sister tried talking to her one day. She kept asking how Valerie was taking Danny's secret, pressing her for some kind of diagnosis. In a fit of frustration, she told Jazz off.

"I was in denial, too," she said a-matter-of-factly. "You'll get used to it once you open yourself to the idea that—"

"You don't know a fucking thing about me. _Piss off_."

Jazz frowned. "I know more than you think. I know that you're angry a lot. I know that this probably felt like a betrayal—"

"And _he_ told you that?"

"He didn't have to."

"_Bull-fucking-shit._ Just leave me alone, I don't need you telling me how to _feel_ about your brother."

"That's… that's not what I'm doing." Jazz's voice was soft and absolutely infuriating. "I'm just making sure you're okay."

"Oh, sure. You want to make sure that the girl who shoots your brother is 'okay'. I see what this is _really _about—you're trying to see if I'm a threat or not!"

Valerie slammed her locker to make a point.

"Stop trying to weasel your way into my psyche with your fucking brain games. The last thing I need is another two-faced Fenton."

Admittedly, that was probably too abrasive, but Valerie didn't give a damn. She didn't _need_ anyone to analyze her, she didn't need to be _told_ how she should be processing this entire bullshit revelation. She needed clarity. And she damn well wasn't going to get that from Jazz Fenton, hell, she wasn't going to get that from Danny Fenton either.

She could only find it herself.

* * *

Her little daydreams weren't going to solve her crisis. Staring at Danny and just _hoping_ for the answer to come to her wasn't going to do jackshit. She needed to actually get out there and force herself to face the truth. To face that Danny Fenton was half-ghost and that all her ill-will towards him had been for naught, that he was just a fuck-up like her doing his best to save the town. That it wasn't _his_ fault that he'd been molecularly hybridized by some giant-ass dimensional rift in his parents' basement. And yeah, he'd lied. He lied so much, lied so much that it _hurt_—but she couldn't hold that against him. She'd lied just as much and he had much more genuine reasons to lie.

She already knew all of this, but she hadn't embraced it. Her heart pulled towards her back, away from her center—away from the truth. She needed to close that rift in her heart, close the rift between Phantom and Fenton.

Initially, she'd planned to offer Phantom an alliance during battle so that she could get used to Fenton being Phantom, but another opportunity presented itself before she could set her plan in action.

That opportunity was the Fitnessgram Pacer Test.

Everyone knew that Danny was pretty much the _worst_ during gym class. Valerie had always thought that he was just lacking in effort, but now that she knew the truth it was clear that Danny was flunking on purpose. He stumbled over his own shoelaces during their daily laps around the gym and trailed behind the rest of the class without any means to catch up.

It was no wonder why Dash picked on him all the time. He was absolutely pathetic. _Too _pathetic. She understood that 'weakness' was Danny's alibi, but his act was a bit… over the top.

When Tetslaff announced that the annual Pacer Test, Valerie decided that she wouldn't stand to watch Danny make a fool out of himself again. No, she was going to challenge his scrawny, hybrid ass.

"How many laps are you gonna do?" Foley asked him.

Danny thought for a moment. "I think I'm gonna try for twelve. Last time I hit ten, so I might as well improve on paper."

"I dare you to _really_ try," she said. "If we run in the same group, I bet that you still won't be able to outrun me, _ghost boy_."

He shook his head. "Nah. Fenton's supposed to be weak, I need to act like it. If any suspects that anything I do is inhuman, then I'm screwed."

"Honestly, at this point, you're acting too weak to be human. It's kinda obvious that you're pretending, too—which makes you even more suspicious."

"I've been telling him that for months," Manson rolled her eyes. "He never listens."

"It's not that I don't listen, I just don't want to take any risks."

"See." Manson leaned forward on her tennis shoes. "I'll _pay_ you if you manage to beat him. And Danny, if you lose to her, I'm gonna take back my Humpty Dumpty CD."

"What—not fair!"

"It's totally fair. Because everyone here knows that you're capable of _winning _the damn Pacer Test."

"It's not a game."

Valerie pumped her fist. "Now it is. How much money we talking, Manson?"

"Eh, maybe a hundred or two."

"_What_."

"Sam's rich," Foley explained. "_Filthy _rich."

Danny pouted. "I don't want to lose my CD."

"Then run for it, peasant."

"Tucker is the only person who _isn't_ mean to me!" he declared.

If Valerie had known that all it took to get Danny to abandon his weakling charade was getting Manson on board, she would've tried this sooner. Now that they've actually spoken about something _not_ ghost-related, maybe offering Danny an alliance later would be less awkward now. And maybe, Valerie can finally start to accept both halves of the boy she hadn't known at all.

When Tetslaff called Fenton and Gray up to the court, Valerie carefully put her heel on the line and eyed Danny carefully.

_I'm gonna win,_ she told him.

A smirk played on his lips, not unlike one of Phantom's signature grins.

_No, you're not._

When her feet left the line, she knew that there was no way in hell that she was going to win. And that was okay because she'd won in a different way; she'd gotten him to compete.

As a result, her image of Danny became clearer.


End file.
